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New Political/Public Governance

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Please check back later for the full article.

The New Political Governance (NPG)—or alternatively the New Public Governance—is best understood as a heuristic model that allows us to empirically consider, compare, and contrast the evolution of democratic governance and public administration beyond the reforms associated with New Public Management. Contributors have focused on NPG as both a product of and a response to the challenges of a complex, pluralist state. Key pressures said to spur NPG include aggressive, 24/7 media; greater demands for transparency; an expansion in government oversight and accountability; an expansion of the advocacy industry; and, an increasingly polarized and volatile electorate. While these pressures are not, unto themselves, new, what is new is the response to them. Four primary elements characterize NPG as a response to these forces: the onset of the permanent campaign; full, or nearly full, integration of the range of activities associated with governing with constant concerns and tactics historically associated with campaigning; the expansion and elevation of the role of partisan political staff; politicization through the personalization of appointments to senior public service positions; and the shift in norms from a neutral, non-partisan public service to an expectation of promiscuous partisanship that demands enthusiasm for the agenda of the government of the day.

The NPG framework has not been without criticism. Theoretically, some have argued for greater precision in the core concepts of NPG (e.g., politicization). Others have questioned whether it is so much the behaviors themselves—expected or undertaken—or the more public context in which they occur that marks the real shift. Finally some have pointed out the lack of integration of exogenous influences in the NPG model. A number of commenters have pointed out the limited empirical evidence that has been provided to support the NPG model.

Mark Jarvis

Mowat Centre, School of Public Policy and Governance, University of Toronto